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Ayurveda blog

How often do you spend time really nurturing your face? London's air, tube and traffic pollution, stuffy offices, stress, indoor living – all these can make skin dull, congested or blotchy. Beauty and skincare products can go some way towards helping prevent and deal with the damage but the Ayurvedic approach is to improve the functioning of the skin itself.

The ancient Ayurvedic texts say it's OK for Vata and Pitta people to consume dairy. but as a modern Ayurvedic practitioner in London, I see two problems with this. First, when they were written, more than 2,000 years ago, milk came from people's own cows and their milk was considered sattvic (pure). They weren’t, like today's cows, kept in factory conditions...

Not only do we feel uncomfortable in London's current extreme heatwave, but it aggravates Pitta dosha (our subtle fire energy). These delicious foods can help keep Pitta cool and under control, from sweet berries and seasonal greens to cooling coconut and coriander.

Some simple changes to your daily habits can do a lot to keep you cool and calm during this current heatwave, from getting up before sunrise to enjoy the cool and calm of early morning to drinking cooled herbal teas like camomile to the best yoga asanas.

Rather than seeing illness as something that just happens to us, Ayurveda asks us to look at our mind and our own behaviour to see what’s behind it. We innately know what is good for us, but going against this wisdom (or Pragya Aparadha, ‘mistake of the intellect') is what eventually puts our health out of balance.

Ayurveda is sometimes referred to as energy medicine, because Ayurvedic treatment of disease means treating your prana, your life force and vitality,. These include everything from food and herbal medicines to more subtle therapies like meditation.

Prana is the vital energy of the universe. It is a key concept in Ayurveda and yoga. Every living being is alive due to prana. We cannot live without it. We cannot be healthy without the correct and positive flow of prana around the body.

If food looks good, smells good and tastes good, we can savour it with all our senses, enjoy it more, and digest it better. In ayurveda we use spices or herbs in every meal. They not only make food taste delicious but help boost our enzyme function and digest our food.

An atheist was seated next to a little girl on an airplane and he turned to her and said, "Do you want to talk? Flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger."

The little girl, who had just started to read her book, replied to the total stranger, "What would you want to talk about?"

"Oh, I don't know," said the atheist. "How about why there is no God, or no heaven or hell, or no life after death?" as he smiled smugly.

"OK," she said. "Those could be interesting topics but let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff – grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, and a horse produces clumps. Why do you suppose that is?"

The atheist, visibly surprised by the little girl's intelligence, thinks about it and says, "Hmmm, I have no idea." To which the little girl replies, "Do you really feel qualified to discuss God, heaven and hell, or life after death, when you don't know shit?"

Quinoa has become super trendy – even your nan now knows it's pronounced keen-wah. It's been designated a superfood, it's gluten free (very on-message), and ayurvedically, it's balanced for all three doshas. You probably already know that it's a seed not a grain, but because of its nutritional content and general go-with-anythingness we can use it like a grain. But quinoa could be damaging your gut and doing more harm than good because of some rather bothersome molecules in the seeds' protective coating, called saponins.

If it’s possible for something to be trending in the world of vegetables, it’s kale. But, like any food, it's only healthy if you can digest it. Here's why you might not be able to, and whether you need to avoid it completely